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XMir Lands In Ubuntu 13.10 Main

08-09-2013, 01:20 PM

Phoronix: XMir Lands In Ubuntu 13.10 Main

As expected with Canonical's plans to land the Mir Display Server with XMir in Ubuntu 13.10 where Unity 7 will run atop XMir by default for supported configurations, the various components have now landed in the Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy" main archive...

Comment

I've been reading these forums for several months now, and the ones over XWayland, XMir, Mir, Wayland are really baffling me. My understanding is that XWayland and therefore XMir (because most of its been based of XWayland) are really there to provide support for applications that won't be running natively under Wayland and Mir when they're ready. So it's quite bizarre that people are wanting these technologies now and wanting to run full desktops on them, which in a best case scenario will give you the same performance as using vanilla X. I can understand wanting them to test your software, but not as an X replacement, especially right now. However, these threads soon fall apart from discussing the technological advantages of these new technologies, what they can be used for, their feasibility, and their general need to fanboys declaring a win for Ubuntu because they can sort of run things on XMir right now, with everyone trying to point out the flaws in their arguments and being called trolls.

There really needs to be some perspective about what these technologies are being used for, what their going to be used for and what sort of time frame we're talking about. Mir is an Ubuntu technologies being developed for Unity solely and not being designed to take over the Linux ecosystem. Wayland though is being used by everyone else to shore up some of the failing of X. And XMir and Xwalyand are only there to make the passage seamless to their respective parents.That's the facts as they currently stand, things may change in a year who knows, but that's no reason for the name calling, ignorance and immaturity I've seen on these forums to a technical website.

So for those wanting to develop for Ubuntu, then I'm glad to see they're getting the tools they need to start doing a few things, though the tools for those wanting to develop for Wayland are also out there and its misleading to say or ask "where is Wayland?" at this stage.

Comment

I've been reading these forums for several months now, and the ones over XWayland, XMir, Mir, Wayland are really baffling me. My understanding is that XWayland and therefore XMir (because most of its been based of XWayland) are really there to provide support for applications that won't be running natively under Wayland and Mir when they're ready. So it's quite bizarre that people are wanting these technologies now and wanting to run full desktops on them, which in a best case scenario will give you the same performance as using vanilla X. I can understand wanting them to test your software, but not as an X replacement, especially right now. However, these threads soon fall apart from discussing the technological advantages of these new technologies, what they can be used for, their feasibility, and their general need to fanboys declaring a win for Ubuntu because they can sort of run things on XMir right now, with everyone trying to point out the flaws in their arguments and being called trolls.

There really needs to be some perspective about what these technologies are being used for, what their going to be used for and what sort of time frame we're talking about. Mir is an Ubuntu technologies being developed for Unity solely and not being designed to take over the Linux ecosystem. Wayland though is being used by everyone else to shore up some of the failing of X. And XMir and Xwalyand are only there to make the passage seamless to their respective parents.That's the facts as they currently stand, things may change in a year who knows, but that's no reason for the name calling, ignorance and immaturity I've seen on these forums to a technical website.

So for those wanting to develop for Ubuntu, then I'm glad to see they're getting the tools they need to start doing a few things, though the tools for those wanting to develop for Wayland are also out there and its misleading to say or ask "where is Wayland?" at this stage.

XWayland is faster then Xorg as the few 2d Test have shown
Xwayland may get full Xorg integration in the next Xorg release (let's hope )
and what a lot of trolls don't get is that we're going to be able to use Wayland this year in Development release's Mir will not be used tell Ubuntu 14.10 Xmir is really just a Xorg/Xwayland mix and it has a Mir Patch it also needs root to run as of now
Develop releases coming for Wayland this year are Gnome KDE and Maybe E19 & MATE as for Ubuntu Mir thats going to be in October 2014
so we will have 4 to 5 Full Wayland Desktops by Mid Year 2014 and Ubuntu's full Mir Desktop will not be ready tell October 2014
you will see Wayland Desktops at LinuxCon this year as Tech Demo's that we can fully use
Test so far have shown Xmir is Shower then Xorg

The bottom Line is Mir cannot compete with the Development Level of Wayland at all there is no way it can, as Wayland which is being developed by Industries leaders and, Mir is Being Developed by Amateur's

Comment

My understanding is that XWayland and therefore XMir (because most of its been based of XWayland) are really there to provide support for applications that won't be running natively under Wayland and Mir when they're ready.

Not quite. XWayland is intended for running X apps under a native Wayland desktop (such as Weston, or Gnome/KDE once ported). It's a compatibility layer, basically - both short term and long, the idea is that the desktop shell will be running native under Wayland, and XWayland will exist for running applications that don't support Wayland yet.

In contast, XMir (for now, at least) runs only as a full-screen X session on top of Mir. This means you can run an entire X desktop on top of Mir, but it can't run X apps as individual windows under a native Mir desktop (if such a thing existed yet). This is the strategy Ubuntu is taking for the near future - Mir underneath, but a classic X desktop on top. Long term, they'll have a version of the Unity desktop running natively, and XMir will evolve into a legacy support function like XWayland.